Miriam had read the look in his eyes in time to spring aside and avoid his clutching fingers. Far more agile than her adversary, she eluded his attempt to trip her and, fear lending wings to her feet, she raced madly toward Abbott’s Lodge.
Corbin’s heart hammered and thumped as he strove to overtake her. He was in no physical trim and, as Miriam left the footpath and took to the fields, he sank down by the roadside, panting from his exertions. As he rested his brain cleared and he cursed aloud as he realized the folly of his act. In his mad craving for cocaine he had betrayed his precious secret to Miriam. And she would tell. Corbin ground his teeth in rage, then his face cleared. Only Miriam knew—so far. When he got up and limped toward Abbott’s Lodge, his lips wrinkled in a low and vicious smile.
Finally convinced that she had outdistanced Corbin, Miriam dropped back to a walk. Considerably shaken by the fright he had given her, it took her some little time to stop looking over her shoulder to see if the caretaker was still following her. Then her thoughts switched around to Guy Trenholm and the bloodstained sheet, and her recent terror was forgotten. Had Corbin, by his evasive answers to the sheriff’s question about the sheet, made Trenholm believe that she was implicated in Paul Abbott’s murder? She recalled vividly his persistent questions at his bungalow that afternoon as to whether or not she had recognized Paul as the American soldier to whom her uncle had intrusted the Paltoff diamond.
Could it be that Trenholm suspected her of having recognized Paul and seized the opportunity of being alone with her patient to kill him and recover the Paltoff diamond?
The thought was torment! Miriam brushed her hair back from her forehead. She was suddenly blinded by tears, and paused in uncertainty, unable to go on. In that moment she realized what Guy Trenholm had grown to be to her. Love—had she given her love to a man unasked—unsought? Her face flamed scarlet. Had romance come into her life only to be bitter-sweet? She bowed her head in her hands and the old, familiar prayer, which had sustained her through the horrors of war and Russian revolution, again passed her lips: “God, give me strength!”
When Miriam approached the entrance of Abbott’s Lodge she was once more calm and collected. As she stepped inside the house she was met by Martha.
“You are wanted upstairs in Mr. Paul’s old bedroom,” the housekeeper stated. “They are waitin’ for ye,” and giving Miriam no chance to find out who “they” were, she retreated to her kitchen, in time to meet her husband slinking in the back door.
Considerably mystified by the message, Miriam went first to her bedroom, tossed off her hat and coat, and then paused long enough to arrange her hair deftly, which had escaped from her hair net when her hat blew off. Miriam had not been in Paul’s old bedroom since her interview with Trenholm the night after the murder. The door had always been closed and, never having tried to enter it, she was not aware that, by the sheriff’s orders, it had been kept locked. However, she found it not only unlocked, but wide open when she reached there, and, without knocking, she stepped inside the room.
Seated near the table were Betty Carter and Guy Trenholm, and, by their attitude, she judged that they were awaiting her in growing impatience. Miriam’s heart beat a trifle faster as she met Trenholm’s straight gaze, but her manner was entirely natural and composed.
“You sent for me?” she asked, addressing him rather than Betty.